If its investments lose 15 percent this year, for example, New Jersey's teachers' pension system would find itself with a mere 30 percent of the assets necessary to cover its long-term costs, and with an unfunded liability of more than $40 billion. Illinois' teachers pension plan would be more than $75 billion in the red if it sees similar losses this year.

The economic downturn creates a one-two punch for state pensions. Because of the way most public pension funds are structured, lower-than-anticipated investment returns must be made up with tax dollars. But, now, states are also expecting steep drops in tax revenue.

Already, those prospects are causing some state officials to seek a federal bailout. New Jersey State Senate President Stephen Sweeney has called for the feds to offer low-interest loans to states facing severe pension problems.

But federal taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook to pay for states' mistakes. There have been plenty of warning signs that public pension systems were in trouble.

Wisconsin should be an exception - by design, it can't really be underfunded. My payout will drop based on a five-year rolling average of returns on their investments, but they do not have fixed payouts. It could drop to zero, but the pension fund should never need to borrow.

I'm thinking the HEROES Act is just a grandstanding pre-election ploy by the Dems, knowing that the GOP would kill it. Then the Dems get to point to how the evil, uncaring GOP wouldn't let the caring, concerned Dems give everybody more borrowed money.

If I were trying to design a bill that couldn't possibly pass the Senate, but could pass in the House, my first choice would be to allot millions of dollars to fund emergency abortion clinics. My second choice would be stimulus checks for unauthorized immigrants.

That said, it is shameful that we live in a country where 50% of the workers in agriculture and food processing are illegal immigrants, now considered essential workers. How did we get here?